A Malayalam film took Best Film in Melbourne, and Rishab Shetty took Best Director

The 17th Indian Film Festival of Melbourne posted its 2026 winners on 14 August. Best Film went to the Malayalam title Lokah Chapter 1: Chandra. Best Director went to Rishab Shetty for Kantara: A Legend - Chapter 1. Shetty also received the festival's Leadership in Cinema award.

Dulquer Salmaan won Best Actor for Kaantha. Kirti Kulhari won Best Actress for Full Plate. Freedom At Midnight, season 2, was named Best Series. Saiyaara took the People's Choice Award. Rima Das's Not a Hero won Best Indie Film. Pankaj Tripathi was named Artist of Distinction. Rani Mukerji was marked for 30 years in the industry. Rekha received Excellence in Cinema.

The list also ran beyond Hindi and the big southern industries: No Good Men, by Shahrbanoo Sadat, won Best Film from the Subcontinent. Madhushree Dutta's Flying Tigers won Best Documentary. Rasika Dugal won Best Actress in a series for Delhi Crime 3, and Vijay Varma won Best Actor in a series for Matka King.

Melbourne is one of the more useful foreign festivals for Indian films because it treats the industry as more than Bollywood. A Malayalam film at the top of the list, a Kannada director taking Best Director and a leadership prize, and a documentary and an indie in the same release, is a better picture of what Indian cinema actually shipped this year than a single Hindi opening weekend.

It is also a reminder, on an Independence Day weekend, that the films travelling are often the ones rooted in a specific language and place. Kantara and Lokah are not generic export product. They are the opposite, and they are the ones the jurors picked.

Festival trophies do not move the box office by themselves. They do help a film find a second life on the road and on streamers. Watch whether Lokah and Kantara: Chapter 1 pick up more international dates on the back of this, and whether the series wins (Delhi Crime, Freedom At Midnight, Matka King) show up in the next awards cycle at home.